Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/191

 Rome and Carthage 131 warships ready. In spite of their inexperience in naval righting they gained some victories over their rivals; but then they had much ill fortune, for their ships were either lost in storms or de- stroyed by the Carthaginians, and they had to keep building new fleets, only to have them destroyed in turn. After twenty years the treasury was empty and Rome seemed at the end of its resources. Finally, in 242 B.C., a last fleet of two hundred battle- ships was built and equipped by private subscriptions of patriotic Romans and put to sea. This time the Carthaginian navy was defeated and broken up. The Carthaginians were then no longer able to transport reinforcements to Sicily and at last were forced to make peace on Rome's terms. 203. End of the First Punic, or Sicilian, War. The Romans had suffered much in the long war and imposed very hard condi- tions. The Carthaginians were required to give up Sicily and the neighboring islands and pay within ten years a huge war indem- nity of thirty-two hundred talents, over three and a half million dollars. This was a far larger sum in those days than it would be now. For the first time Rome now held territory outside the Italian peninsula, and this was but the beginning of a complete conquest of the Mediterranean countries. II. THE WAR WITH HANNIBAL, OR SECOND PUNIC WAR 204. Interval between the First and Second Punic Wars. About a quarter of a century elapsed before war between the great rivals broke out again. Meanwhile both of them devoted them- selves to -increasing their strength. Shortly after the close of the first war Rome took possession of the large islands of Corsica and Sardinia. These, with Sicily, gave her three outposts against Carthage. At the same time she completed the conquest of the Italian peninsula by conquering the Gauls to the north of the river Po and extending her boundaries to the Alps. 205. Hannibal's Audacious Plan for conquering Rome. To offset this increase of Rome's power Carthage turned her atten- tion to the conquest of Spain, to which the Romans also laid